You have long heard that fat is the enemy. Dietary recommendations over the past few decades have stated that fat should be greatly minimized—saturated fat in particular. Fat raises cholesterol, you’ve been told. A high-fat diet leads to heart disease, you’ve been led to believe. The low-fat diet craze began in the late seventies with the recommendation to decrease saturated…

BPA is one of the most highly covered toxins by the press, and for good reason. It is one of the most widely found toxins in everyday household items such as metal food and beverage cans, plastic bottles and containers, cash register receipts, and even dental fillings. A recent primate study funded by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences…

Have you heard the news? Obesity rates in children aged 2 to 5 years declined 43 percent from 2003 to 2012, according to a recent study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association based on data from the CDC’s National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES). When analyzing data from 2003–2004, researchers found that the obesity rate in…

You’ve probably heard of the Body Mass Index (BMI) before—you know, the number calculated from your weight and height that puts you either in the healthy weight, overweight, or obese category. It turns out that researchers have questioned the validity of the BMI as an effective tool because it doesn’t take into consideration different body types and thus, doesn’t accurately…

You may not think about the chemicals used to produce the wide range of packaging that encases the foods you buy and eat on a regular basis, but it might be time to do so. Environmental scientists warn that these chemicals might be harmful to our health over the long term, according to a study published in the British Medical…

Heart disease is the number-one cause of death in the United States. Coronary heart disease (CHD), also known as atherosclerosis, is the most common form of heart disease, killing more than 385,000 people each year.1 CHD rates in Japan are much lower than in the United States and other developed countries. One possible explanation for this difference is the high…

Omega-3 supplementation greatly improves brain function in malnourished children ages 8 to 12, according to a recent study published in the journal Research in Developmental Disabilities. Many studies have been done on the brain health effects of omega-3 fats in infants, toddlers, adults, and the elderly, but the effects of these fats on malnourished children in this age range was…

No, it isn’t the latest joke, though chances are you have heard the story in the news. But let me just clear something up: there is no actual poop in a new type of “gourmet” sausage developed recently by scientists in Spain—just a beneficial strain of bacteria commonly found in (you guessed it!) baby poop. For those of us with…

Alzheimer’s disease is one of the most dreaded diseases of all. Many people would rather lose almost anything before losing their minds. The causes of Alzheimer’s disease are likely a combination of genetic, environmental, and lifestyle factors. Researchers from Rutgers University recently found that elevated blood levels of DDE, the metabolite of the banned pesticide DDT, increased the risk of…

Daily supplementation with the probiotic Bifidobacterium lactis was found to improve immune health in elderly adults, according to a study by researchers from the University of Reading and published in the Journal of Nutritional Science. The daily probiotic was found to significantly increase white blood cell activity in the participants when compared to people who took placebo. Specifically, the phagocytic…